


something about us

by noblydonedonnanoble



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 14:41:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4880719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblydonedonnanoble/pseuds/noblydonedonnanoble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the first time he’d been in her flat in over four years, and it still felt like home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	something about us

**Author's Note:**

> (title taken from "something about us" by daft punk)

                it was supposed to get easier.

                maybe it did at first. they stepped back after the wedding, hardly hung out at all, and never alone. didn’t speak on the phone much more than that.

                soon enough david didn’t feel like a stranger when he woke up in his own bed, soon enough playing the family man role felt truly right. or if not right, then better.

                but every time he saw her, his heart still leapt into his throat.

 

*

 

                she called him once while he was on the set of _broadchurch_ , and they chatted for nearly half an hour. he couldn’t stop grinning for about ten minutes, at least until he remembered himself. probably for the best – it was no challenge to put on his glum alec mask that day.

 

*

 

                after the bfi screening, david asked if she wanted to go out for a bite. he tried to make it sound casual, as though he was just offering on a whim, but in truth he’d spent the past week trying to decide whether he should put the idea out there.

                catherine hesitated. she looked genuinely distraught when she said, “i can’t, i’m off to dinner with adrian.”

                “oh, right. okay, you kids have fun.”

                she had the grace to behave as though she couldn’t tell that he was supremely disappointed.

 

*

 

                he was a bit surprised when she called to ask about _richard ii_.

                “you’re driving all the way out just to see l’il ol’ me?”

                “well, i won’t be driving,” catherine pointed out. as though that was the part he found noteworthy. “i just wanted to know whether you’d like me to come for any show in particular. maybe on a night when we can get a drink afterward?”

                in the span of a few seconds, his imagination ran away from him and he had to rein it back in. “sure.” already settling his mind on an evening that he knew was wide open, even as he said, “let me just check my calendar…”

 

*

 

                neither of them addressed the feeling of déjà vu when catherine appeared at his door backstage; david simply assumed that she felt it too, because he had trouble imagining that she wouldn’t.

                she passed up the loveseat in favor of a stand-alone chair and he took the hint, sitting across from her.

                “how’d you like it?” he asked immediately. he didn’t think he’d ever reach a point where her approval didn’t mean the world to him. “i don’t know if i’d say it was my best night, but…”

                “shush, you know you were brilliant,” she chided with a fond smile.

                he preened at the compliment.

                “did you come with anyone else?” he asked. “i was imagining maybe you and adrian might…”

                “oh no, he and i…” catherine’s face fell just slightly; her smile lingered but her eyes were sad. “we’ve ended things.”

                “shit, i’m sorry. was it a long time coming?”

                “yes,” she said simply.

                “i feel like i should have known about that.” there was a time when he would have. david flashed back to twig, when things were beginning to go sour with him, and all of the late-night phone calls that he got from her, whispered conversations as she cried her eyes out because she didn’t want erin to hear.

                 catherine shrugged it off. “i didn’t want to bother you. figured you were probably busy, what with all of this.” she gestured around them.

                “don’t ever think that i’m too busy for you.” it came out quietly, and more tender than he meant it to, and he swallowed nervously before raising his voice and changing the subject. “but since you’re alone, fancy coming out to the stage door with me? i’m sure the fans would love to see you.”

                her smile grew wider. “yeah, alright.”

 

*

 

                when david found out that georgia was pregnant again, catherine was one of the first people he called.

                she shared his excitement with the utmost sincerity; she knew how much he had craved fatherhood, knew what it meant to him that he’d built this life.

                “do you know yet if it’s a boy or girl?”

                “it’s too early to tell, but georgia thinks it’s going to be a boy.”

                catherine’s warm laughter hit david’s ear and traveled into his chest, settling there and filling him. “i’d trust her on that.”

 

*

 

                david surprised her during her _assassins_ run. he went on a whim, and as he asked if he could go backstage without catherine being alerted to his presence, he felt a brief touch of satisfaction at having a reputation that allowed such rules to be bent. one of the few perks of fame that never got old.

                 he was bowled over by delighted smile that lit up her face when she opened her dressing room door. her arms were around him in a flash. there was the unmistakable feeling of her lips as she pressed a rushed kiss to his jaw – the return to an old habit of hers that prior to this moment, she seemed to have made a point to discontinue.

                it made him blush.

                “you didn’t tell me you were coming,” she chastised, swatting at his arm as she stepped back to allow him in.

                “i wanted to surprise you.”

                catherine giggled. she gestured that he take a seat on a bench that was pressed against one wall, and he did; she followed, leaving an appropriately platonic space between them. “shame you didn’t come last night, my mum was here.”

                “oh, no!” he exclaimed. david adored her mother. always had. it was a shame, really, that as a side-effect of their self-imposed isolation, he hadn’t seen josephine in such a very long time.

 

*

 

                the first time he’d been in her flat in over four years, and it still felt like home.

                they were alone. erin was due back late in the evening, coming in on a late flight, so there was still no threat of –

                not that they would.

                catherine had put on _the west wing_ without any sort of preamble, and david had gone along with it because it was easy. they sat on the sofa together, and at some point over the course of the past two hours, she had rested her head on his shoulder.

                her breathing was easy and the skin of her bare arm was warm against his and it took everything in david not to let his instincts kick in. he did not rest his arm over the back of the sofa or brush his fingers through her hair and kiss the crown of her head, or kiss her anywhere else, for that matter.

                and they had done all of this as friends, back in the _doctor who_ days, but they couldn’t do this anymore without it feeling like it meant something else.

                catherine did not invite him over again for a good long while.


End file.
